


The Rosary of Loudun

by FreyaLor



Category: History of France, The Musketeers (2014)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-20 12:42:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11335839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreyaLor/pseuds/FreyaLor
Summary: A Tumblr prompt from our resident Doctor : "visit from an old friend".





	The Rosary of Loudun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stepantrofimovic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stepantrofimovic/gifts).



 

 

 

 

He gave me that rosary on the day of the Paix de Loudun.

 

 

I was nothing more that the Bishop of the dirtiest town of France by then, nothing more than a shadow in the Medici’s footsteps. I was twenty-five at most, my eyes were barely looking up to the King’s Council with vague distant hope, and he was already the fiercest Capuchin of France.

But the raging war between the Queen and Condé made us meet almost every month, and we found ourselves smiling at each-other’s wits more than once. I had to bite my lips a thousand times not to finish his sentences, as he most annoyingly failed to do the same for mine.

He struggled and schemed to be seated at my side at every banquet we were both invited to, making a show of eating an absurdly small amount of food, in a wooden bowl and in complete silence, only to make the opulence of everyone else’s plate look positively sinful.

It made me smile every time.  
_Ezechieli,_ I named him, but he only learned about it years later.

 

He was looking for an ally of influence inside the Royal Palace, and I had my own seat next to the Queen’s. I was looking for information about the trades and alliances between the great Lords of France, and he had a spiderweb of Capuchin informants covering the whole Kingdom.

 

We didn’t meet. We collided. We _merged_ together.

 

I think, beyond the obvious symmetry of our purposes, that we were both craving for the intellectual stimulation. Let’s face it, at that time, we were both surrounded by _idiots_.

 

He mostly paid visits for political advice at first. He came in with information, reports, news and letters. We discussed, sometimes for hours, often for whole sleepless nights. Then, exhausted and satisfied, he always asked for a glass of wine, and though his capuchin discipline was an example for all, he never watered down the first glass I served him.

Then, with time, he started to visit more and more without a clear reason, without any reason. He started to just barge in my rooms, sit in the same chair, ask for the same wine, and speak.

He’s always been the travelling man, while I barely left Paris. So he had a lot to describe to me. The winters of Russia, the forests of Prussia. The sun-crushed villages of Italy, and the seashores of Sweden. He never forgot to bring me small mementos, for my Cabinet of Curiosities, where almost every item has been a gift from him. Some of them are unique, some of them are precious, but none of this has more value than the first thing he ever pushed into my hands.

The rosary of Loudun.

 

He came back to Paris this day, with the peace treaty held tight against his chest, and ran straight to my room in the Queen’s apartments. Before he even showed the document to the Medici, before he even announced the Peace to the palace, he wanted me to read it first.

 

-“Are you satisfied with it?” I asked.

And I remember he just shrugged.

-“It gives Condé an insane amount of money, but that’s all this rascal wanted.” He grumbled. “The only redeeming feature of this thing is that I made sure to strip Concini of half of his titles as a peace offering to the Princes, because it gives you more space, you know, for later.”

He had the certainty of my becoming a Cardinal, and a Minister of the King, long before I ever did.

He always had more faith in me than I could ever have.

 

-“You were supposed to work for the Queen and the Pope,” I reminded him; “not for me.”

  
He smiled, then, and pulled those worn out, plain rosewood beads out of his dark robes, whispering:

-“I live and breathe for two things. Church, and France.”

 

With that, he gently placed the rosary in my hands, closing my fingers around it and kissing them twice, looking up to me with quiet confidence as he said:

-“And I know, one day, for me and for the whole world, you’ll be the embodiment of both.”

 

 

 

Am I, now?

_Am I?_

 

I have become Cardinal. I am the head of the King’s Council. I am Minister. I am _everything._

_But am I Church, am I France?_

I softly graze the shining beads with my fingertips, sitting in silence on that high chair in the guest rooms of my own house.

_Well, if I am in my friend’s eyes, that’s enough of a blessing._

 

I hear the door clicking open and I get up from my seat, wincing. God, how long have I been sitting here? It must be dreadfully late.

I take a furtive look out the windows, to my gardens _a l’italienne_. I had the servants light two hundred torches in the alleys between the fountains and the massive Arch, so they could be seen all night long, and around a huge brazier, a small choir is singing hopeful prayers in the orchard below the rooms.

He always loved my small house in Reuil, so I wanted him to enjoy the beauty of it every second, even in the darkest hours of the night.

 

The physician steps out and holds the door open for me. I do my best to steel myself before I look at him in the eyes, but when I do, I still fail to suppress a whimper.

 

It’s over, his stern features say.

 

_It’s over._

 

**No.**

I have a glare of pure anger for the rosary, because sometimes, even I can’t understand God’s reasons. Even I sometimes feel he’s just playing with our hearts like a blind child beats a drum. I squeeze my eyes shut and rub them with my fingertips, sighing.

-“How much time?” I ask the physician.

 

The old man must have sensed the untamed hope in my voice, and he gently shakes his head, crushing it before it rises too high.

-“A few hours, no more.”

 

 

Oh, Lord, **no**.

 

Not now, not so soon. Our work isn’t done yet, there is still so much to do, so much to talk about. Tears rush to my eyes, a wretched sob threatening to shake me, and I clench my jaw around it. I promised I wouldn’t. I owe him nothing less.

I dismiss the physician with a nod, and, wiping my face one last time, I get in and close the door behind me with a fake smile plastered upon my lips.

 

Lost in a room too wide for him, lost in a bed too large, lost in covers too thick, is the frail, dying body of my only friend.

_Joseph._

 

-“Your Eminence.” He greets me with the ghost of a voice, and I think he wants to smile, but his gaunt face only twitches.

 

I wish I could walk quietly to him, but who am I fooling. It is nothing more than a desperate run, and I throw myself on my knees beside his bed, grabbing his cold hand in mine. He feels the rosary between my fingers, and doesn’t even have to look down to recognize it.

His mouth twitches again, the damage of his brain attack having destroyed what used to be such an expressive face, but I understand his intent to smile some more.

 

-“It is always a pleasure to have a visit from an old friend” he muses softly, his weak hand giving mine a short squeeze.

For the first time since I’ve met him, I fear I have no idea what to say, but I don’t have to search for long, because after a while he gently speaks some more, gesturing towards his desk:

 

-“I have received the latest letters from Sweden and Germany concerning our great enterprise for the borders of Europe. Sweden is proposing Münster as a location for the negotiations. It’s a lot further than Cologne as we first suggested, but it seems to gather a more positive response. Maybe we could…”

 

-“Joseph.” I interrupt, tears threatening my eyes once more, my hands shaking around his, but he doesn’t hear me.

 

-“… accept the location as a show of goodwill. The United Provinces are claiming their independence as non-negotiable, which drives Spain into states of fury. While they fight about this, I am confident we could squeeze Alsace and Pignerol out of Germany without too much of a…”

 

-“ _**Joseph!** _ ”

 

I am clearly crying by now, and I think that’s the only reason why he finally stops talking.

 

-“Your Eminence?” He stutters, unsure.

 

-“Please, my friend.” I beg. “The treaty can wait. Europe can wait, and as far as I’m concerned tonight, the whole world can crumble down to pieces for all I care, but please, I implore you. Just _speak to me_.”

 

He frowns, about to tell me that’s exactly what he was doing, for sure, but he’s always been brilliant. Surely a lot more than me. My meaning sinks in, and he gives me this twitch of a smile once more.

 

 

Silence fills the room for a while as he looks like he’s searching for something in this incredible memory of his. While he does, I check his view of my gardens. Yes, the torches are magnificent, highlighting his favorite fountain, and the Arch he taunted me about with the sin of vanity, but still admired for hours.

The choir sings relentlessly, in soft soothing notes, the Latin words rising in the cold December air through the ajar windows.

In the hearth inside, the fire is roaring, filled with incense and sage, warming up the room, singing his own kind of praise.

 

I hope he likes it. I did all I could. I owed him nothing less.

 

I am pulled out of my reverie by his hand, obviously the only one he can still move, freeing itself from my fingers to brush the red silk of my robes with tender care. His eyes, his bright, ardent eyes, still untouched by death, shine with fondness in firelight. My dear Joseph.

-“I remember when you first wore these.” He breathes. “Not one week after the news of your nomination. They fit perfectly on first try. You didn’t even look in the mirror the tailor provided, you just turned to me and asked me how you looked.”

-“And you said ‘you look like the future of France.’” I chuckled. “Medici was right behind you, and she was furious.”

 

-“I never liked that witch,” he spits with enough violence to have me jump in surprise; “you deserved so much more than the _filthy_ way she looked at you. But as the King needed time to realize where you truly belonged, I guess she was the only ladder you could step on.”

 

I frown, lowering my eyes. Joseph has always been the one to remind me all I did was for a higher purpose, but that hasn’t been enough to erase my burning self-disgust. Among the countless shameful things I’ll have to answer for sooner or later, selling myself to the Medici as a bashful lover and bedroom toy for more power and one more seat closer to the King is written in letters of fire.

-“Speaking of getting what you deserve,” he whispers in a teasing voice;”how’s that Gascon soldier of yours?”

 

I know my face lightens up like a child’s, darting up a thankful glance to him, but I don’t care much.

Joseph never fully approved of my love for Jean, of course. He is a Capuchin monk, and he wrote four thousand verses in Latin about how everything the Catholic Church doesn’t approve of should be _eradicated_. But somehow, he came to appreciate the man Jean is. And though he could hardly bear to hear, let alone see a single cue of our affection, he slowly grew accustomed to the sight of us together, welcoming Jean’s blunt, though good sensed opinion, even upon the highest matters of diplomacy.

There have been nights of lively debates the three of us spent in the Palais Cardinal, where Joseph took his first glass without water, but also the second and third. There have been nights of peaceful talk where he laughed a lot more than he cared to admit. Once, I think, as the work was done a few hours before dawn, I found myself staring in disbelief at Jean teaching Joseph how to play cards again, as my dear Capuchin had forgotten everything of his soldiering days. 

-“Why on Earth did the two greatest warriors of France leave the army before they reach thirty to put on robes and read old books?” Jean laughed once, and he didn’t notice Joseph’s look of sheer bliss at what he considered the highest praise he ever got.

 

I think I only lacked the King to have everything I love in one room, and those nights may have been the happiest of my life.

 

 

 

I don’t reply, I just smile, because his question wasn’t a question, it was the gift of acceptance, and I cherish it as a treasure.

 

He pales, suddenly, and I realize with pain how time is nothing but sand between our fingers. I grip his hand, my whole body refusing to let go, but he whispers something about God’s will, and I nod bitterly.

We talk some more, mostly about the gardens, and he says something strange about the torchlights, each one being like a good memory from the past, guiding his thoughts to the future. He thanks me for the choir, he thanks me for the whole house. He thanks me for many things, and I have to kiss his hand and beg him to stop, because the tyrant he is made me promise not to cry.

He pales, his voice grows weaker by the minute, and that agony in my heart is about to burst. Because I promised, I bite my lips on my sorrow, holding his hand, asking if he can see the stars from where he lies.

 

He says he does, but I can barely hear him. I want to speak with him, I want to speak some more. I want to speak of every moment of our lives, from the Rosary of Loudun to this very bedroom, I want to revive them like I could blow on dying embers, I want to lay them all at his feet and make him see everything we accomplished, every battle we fought, every victory we squeezed from fate.

I want to thank him for every acre of land, every year of peace France owes him just as much as it owes me.

I want to promise him a statue, a shrine, an Abbey with his own name, but I know, I know.

He’d dismiss everything with a wave of his hand.

So I just gently lay the rosary on his thin twitching chest, and slowly sign his forehead, whispering a blessing with the last words I can utter before the tears burn my will to ashes.

 

He pales, but his eyes remain bright, alight with resolve, right until the end.

He pales, but his fingers still graze my face as he breathes:

 

-“I told you one day, you’d become France, you’d become Church.”

 

And to hear the rest, I have to lean so close my face almost touches his.

 

-“I told you you’d be everything I lived for.”

 

With that, his eyes laugh, and he speaks no more. He pushes me away with his trembling hand, his stare fixed upwards, and I understand his last conversation is meant for God alone.

 

-“Goodbye, Joseph.” I cry as I step back.

 

-“ _Goodbye Armand_ ” His silent lips mouth, and at this very moment, something in me shatters.

 

 

 

I rush to the door, close it behind my back, lean against it and slide down to the floor.

 

 

 

 

 

They must have heard me _scream_ as far as the last torchlight of the gardens.

I screamed in despair, I screamed at the gaping wound of loneliness already tearing my insides apart. I screamed in anger at God's own face, I screamed for the only friend I ever had.

 

I screamed until my lungs hurt, until I almost passed out at his door, until two physicians came begging for me to get up. I didn't. I fought and hissed long enough for them to retreat next door and simply wait for me to wear myself out.

 

 

 

 

It surely took a lot longer than they expected, because the last thing I remember before exhaustion took me is the timid sun of December above the gardens at noon.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> François Leclerc du Tremblay, named Father Joseph as he entered the Capuchin order after a few years in the army, died of the consequences of two brain thrombosis attacks in 1638.
> 
> Richelieu is said to have spent three days locked in his rooms in mourning afterwards, and wrote : " Je perds ma consolation et mon unique secours, mon confident et mon appui" ( I lost my comfort and my only helping hand, my confident and my support.)
> 
> Through a rapidly changing world of power and influence, their friendship has never faltered. 
> 
>  
> 
> I don't think this is exactly what the Doctor wanted as a prompt, since there is absolutely no Trevilieu in that Trevilieu, but I am sorry. It needed to be done.


End file.
